Your New Business Venture: Scamming Christians
Let me teach you how to do it.
Come along and jump into a new business venture with me. Swindling the religious of their pretty pennies.
HEHEHE.
Here’s the thing. Christians can be some of the easiest people to scam. The same characteristics that make them receptive to organized religion are the same characteristics that make them vulnerable to scams.
For example, religious people are more willing to trust people. They are receptive to spiritual reasoning (which can be manipulated to forgo critical thinking). All these features exist in a religious person. Instead of trying your luck by scamming random people with unpredictable characteristics, you are better off with the predictability of targeting a religious person.
The Affinity Scam
Here’s a kind of scam that would work excellently, it’s called the “affinity scam” and there are many advantages with it. By infiltrating a religious group, you can keep it self-contained without actually involving the authorities. Furthermore, having the victims in the same background allows them to wallow in groupthink. Convince an influential member to be part of your scheme, they will automatically make followers for you.
Let’s go over some great examples of how people have done it before.
William Neil “Doc” Gallagher targeted his victims with a Christian Radio Show. The tagline of the show was: “See you in Church on Sunday”
Primary Targets: Christian and Elderly.
That’s a good niche market.
Amount Scammed: Est $30 Million
Fraud: Faithful Lose Millions in Ponzi Scheme | Christianity Today
Here’s a classic from 1998. The scammer, Phillip Hamon, used this innovative strategy:
Reasonable Returns!
The products he offered had only slightly higher returns compared to the stock market and was in the realm of realism. This allowed him to avoid suspicion. Mind you, religious people are not that greedy either. Absolutely innovative.
Amount Scammed: Est $40 Million
Fraud Trial: Ponzi-Scheme Trial Begins | Christianity Today
The "Double Your Blessing" program would double your money in 18 months. What more? It’s guaranteed.
The organizers, Greater Ministries, would hold revival meetings to rally the people to join their program. It got so big that they managed to hold meetings in 50 of the states of America.
The lesson here, adopt the preferred aesthetics of the target audience.
Amount scammed: Est $100 Million
Ponzi Scheme Strikes Bethel Church | The Roys Report (julieroys.com)
Fantastic case study. With perseverance, anything is possible. Bethel Church is one of those big churches with a huge following. It would be crazy to target it, but this guy did it. What a legend.
The perpetrator of the scam, Ken Winton frequently posts motivational quotes about Jesus on his Facebook post. Again, it’s building that personal relationship.
The important takeaway here is that anybody can be a valid target.
Amount scammed: $35 Million
Free Additional Tips
Instead of ‘Unsustainable Returns’. Spiritualize the issue. Say that it’s “blessings from God”.
Shut down their cognitive capacities by saying:
”You don’t need to question the system, just have faith in the system”.Target the more uneducated ones. they’ll lack the financial literacy to understand what a scam is.
Conclusion
Hopefully with this information. You can become an actual scammer.
To end this article cheesily. I’m going to end with a Bible Verse.
“Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves” - Matt 7:15.
As long they never watch out, I think we will be safe. 🤣
Ps: This is sarcastic.
Great article Joel. Yeah, financial scams can have a peculiar but convincing way of infiltrating the church.
But I don't quite understand this passage, could you explain more?
"By infiltrating a religious group, you can keep it self-contained without actually involving the authorities."